


I Will Find You

by Dordean



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 15:53:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13103535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dordean/pseuds/Dordean
Summary: For Prompt: "Stygga didn't go as extreme as it did; everyone is just fine and recovering from that fight; Cahir x Ciri"





	I Will Find You

**Author's Note:**

> The fact I'm obsessed with Ciri is nothing new, and my crush on Cahir is spinning out of control, so this was a perfect prompt. <3
> 
> Endless thanks and love to [ Kael](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeltale/pseuds/kaeltale) and [Sparrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_sparrows_fall) for beta.

***

The stitches on his head stung like seven hells, his right arm would be useless for a long time, but against all odds, he was alive. All of them made it out of Stygga castle alive. Including… _her._

_***_

Cahir was trying damn hard not to stare, not to follow Ciri like the lovestruck idiot that he was, but judging by her glances, he was failing miserably. So he chose to keep his distance instead, to not embarrass himself any further. 

He suspected Geralt had mentioned something to her already as he could sense a shift in her attitude towards him over the last day or two. But he still couldn’t tell if the shift was a favourable one, or quite the opposite. Unlike him, she couldn't be read that easily, and he didn't have many chances to spend time in her company; she was mostly with Geralt or the sorceress Yennefer, or both.

Or with Regis; the vampire and Ciri took to each other immediately. Cahir was doing his best to not let jealousy get the better of him; jealousy that was completely irrational, ungrounded, and straight up ugly, and which made keeping his distance all the more necessary. 

***

Everyone agreed that the fact they survived the attack on Vilgefortz’s fortress was something close to a miracle, considering how badly outnumbered they were; but the price they all paid for it was high. Himself, Milva and Angoulême were badly injured, Yennefer was still suffering from the aftermath of the tortures, and Geralt needed time for his witcher mutations to heal his body.

Therefore, as soon as they got to a reasonably safe location, a small clearing in a forest a two-days’ ride north, they set up a camp and spent the next few days recovering, resting, tending to their injuries. And catching up, talking, laughing. 

The relief was overwhelming, the gratitude and pure _joy_ palatable; for against all odds they reached their goal; justice was served, they were alive, and in that brief space of time, they were together. 

They were all aware that part of their story was unavoidably coming to an end, for such was the nature of things. But they didn't speak about it; instead, they cherished that borrowed time spent in one another’s company for nobody could be sure if they would ever meet again.

Cahir didn't let himself think about any of this.

***

Ciri found him the next morning, sitting at the edge of the forest and cleaning his blade.

“I realised I never thanked you properly,” she said as she sat beside him. 

“There's no need, my lady,” he replied awkwardly. He was aching for a moment of privacy with her, and now that it finally happened, all the words seemed to have simply disappeared. 

“Lady!” she snorted. “I'm no lady. Last time I was anything other than prey, I was a bandit and a pet killer on a leash.”

Her voice cracked at that. Cahir looked up at her, surprised by her words and her tone both.

“As for the thanks, I beg to differ,” she continued after a moment, her head tilted. “You saved my life back there. And Geralt told me about what happened earlier, about everything you've done.”

“I wasn't the only one,” he shrugged uncomfortably.

“No, and I’m indebted to all of you,” she agreed. “But it's your choices that are the most unexpected. Anyone else in your place would have delivered me to Nilfgaard and basked in favours and glory for years. And yet you abandoned your duty, disobeyed the direct orders from the emperor...“ 

Her voice faltered again; she paused briefly, before continuing. 

“It will cost you your future, and if you're caught, your life too,” she didn’t take her eyes off him even for a second. “Why did you desert? What happened? What _changed_?”

Cahir was silent for a long moment. Finally, he took a deep breath and gathered the courage to speak; she deserved the truth after all - or at least part of it.

“Cintra happened,” he said quietly, and then, in what was clearly an act of suicide on his part, he added, “you happened.”

She was watching him for a few heartbeats in complete silence, with a peculiar expression on her face.

“You're a strange man, Cahir Mawr Dryffryn, son of Ceallach,” she said quietly. Then she leaned in and kissed him on a cheek. 

He froze, afraid to move, to breathe, as if it would break the spell, make it all a dream he'd have to wake up from.

“That's still not a proper thank you,” she smiled at him. From up close, her eyes were even more green. “But that's a start.”

With that she got up and walked away to join the others, leaving Cahir stunned.

A moment later Regis materialised out of nowhere, as was his wont. 

“You should probably close your mouth,” the vampire mocked him, but his voice was gentle. 

Cahir shook his head, unable to speak, and kept looking after Ciri.

“A word of a warning,” Regis continued in the same tone. “She is _not_ the girl you dreamt of.”

He spun around to face the vampire, who simply stood there, looking down at him.

“What?” he breathed. “How do you even… Geralt told you?!”

“No, he did not,” Regis said with a small smile. “I'm afraid you talk in your sleep. Just once or twice, mind you, but from the context, that was enough…”

Cahir found himself praying for the earth to swallow him to spare him further mortification. 

“Does everyone know then?” he asked, struggling to keep the bitterness at bay.

“I do not know about everyone,” the vampire replied softly. “But Ciri does.”

“Great,” Cahir shook his head, exasperated, and only then registered the vampire’s earlier words. “What do you mean, she's not the one I dreamt of?”

Regis glanced after Ciri himself, thoughtful.

“Only that she is real; and that she has been through a lot. She's also too proud and stubborn for her own good,” he smiled again. “To be quite frank, I cannot understand how she is _not_ Geralt and Yennefer’s biological child, for the similarities are astounding…” he must have noticed Cahir’s scowl, as he broke off and waved his hand dismissively. “But I digress. The point is, right now she needs healing above all else; she needs people who care for her. What she doesn't need is adoration.”

Cahir looked at Ciri, sitting on the far side of the clearing, hugging her knees to her chest and talking to Yennefer. He didn't particularly _like_ Regis’s words, but he could recognise the truth in them.

“So what would your expert advice be…?” he turned back to Regis, but the vampire was already gone.

***

It was his turn to keep the watch that night, when Ciri cried out in her sleep and jerked up, awake and fully alert in an instant. Her hand flew to her blade; she threw a few furtive glances around, and relaxed visibly, taking in the sleeping forms of their companions and a warm glow of the campfire.

She got up and sat beside him, leaning against the log. 

“Sorry,” she grimaced, wrapping her blanket tight around her, shuffling closer to the fire.

“Bad dream?” Cahir asked in a quiet voice, trying not to disturb the others.

“Horrific. And not a dream; a memory.”

He waited, but she didn’t say anything more for a long while, staring into the flames in silence. Regis’s remarks came back to him in a flash.

“It was him, wasn’t it. The man who attacked us,” he said, observing her; the words she whispered at him in the dark corridors of the Stygga castle ingrained in his memory. “Who was he?”

“Leo Bonhart,” she replied, her voice flat and expressionless, and Cahir felt a chill running down his spine. He recognised that tone; it was the one people used to talk about the things or events that broke them. “A monster.”

He hesitated for a moment, then reached out and touched her hand. It was cold, curled up in a fist, clutching at the side of the blanket. He covered it with his hand, trying to offer her some warmth. She shot him a strange look, but she didn't move away. He took it as an encouragement he badly needed.

“I know you don't have many reasons to trust me,” he said with a quiet ache in his chest. “Not after my role in what you've been through. But talking often helps. It's barely past midnight, and...I'm here,” he paused for a moment. “For whatever that's worth,” he added bitterly.

She kept studying him, and he felt like some rare specimen of a bug, dissected by a particularly curious and thorough scholar. No wonder her and the vampire bonded so fast, he thought with unease.

Then she started talking, slowly, quietly. She paused often, gathering thoughts, the words coming with difficulty, harsh, often quivering, and filled with pain.

He was briefly tempted to simply indulge in marvelling at the sound of her voice, but her story, full of injustice and suffering, quickly demanded his full and undivided attention. And so he listened, and asked questions, and held her hand, reliving with her the horrors of the recent years.

When she finished, she sat in silence, her posture rigid, her eyes fixed on the flames. Acting on an instinct, he pulled her closer and put his arms around her.

And immediately he realised that was the best he could have done. Ciri flinched at his touch at first, stiff and keeping her distance, but soon after her body started shaking with quiet sobs, tears flowing down her face, wetting his black cloak. He hugged her tight, stroking her hair, murmuring words of comfort. She gripped at him, hid her face in his chest and cried; for her friends, for her beliefs that turned out to be delusions, for the parts of herself that were irrevocably lost.

After a long moment he felt her relaxing, softening in his embrace. But he held her still, unwilling to break the contact, to lose the intimacy. 

Regis was right, he thought; she wasn't just the girl with the rose tattoo he blindly, absurdly fell in love with; there was so much more to her, the glimpses of which he was only now beginning to see. But the most important thing was that she was here, broken and hurting. And he was here, with her - for her.

He kept holding Ciri in his arms until she slipped into dreamless sleep, her breathing even, her tear-streaked face calm at last. He wrapped the blanket tight around her and pressed his lips to her hair. He closed his eyes, cherishing the feel of her, relishing in that first moment in years his mind and his heart felt truly at peace - peace he thought was lost for him forever the moment he found her as a young girl in the burning inferno of Cintra.

***

Regis rose first, hours before sunrise; he caught Cahir’s eye and nodded at him with an approving smile, before disappearing into the forest.

Ciri slept.

***

She left the next day, together with Geralt and Yennefer, gone to meet her fate, of which he could no longer be a part. 

The rest of them travelled together for a short while afterwards, but the beating heart of the hansa, the purpose that bound them together, was gone. 

And so, one by one, they left, following their own paths, towards their own destinies. 

The farewells were heartfelt, but short; for something had to end so that something new could begin.

***

Only stories remained of them, tales defying belief, told in hushed voices by the campfire; of the crows crying for blood over the cemetery of forgotten ships and the slaughter that followed; of the witcher that died and returned; of the dead kings of the North; of the Wild Hunt riding through the northern lands. 

But there were no stories of _her_.

***

Cahir hid in Kovir; the only place on the Continent he could think of that could offer a relative safety from the imperial justice. There he tried to carve a new life for himself, to move on, to forget. And after a decade things started going reasonably well; he even began to think he was finally getting over the past - over _her_ \- that he was...fine. 

And all it took to shatter that illusion, that lie he had been telling himself, was one word in a story told in a harbour tavern by a Redanian merchant.

A _witcheress._

Cahir boarded the ship bound for Novigrad the very next day.


End file.
